Howard Kurtz Publicizes Malkin's Efforts To Tar Left -- Even Though He Thinks They're "Absurd"
March 1, 2007 -- 11:58 AM EST // //
This is a good one. Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz today gives top billing to Michelle Malkin's highlighting of a few insane comments on Huffington Post about the Dick Cheney assassination attempt. At the top of his column, Kurtz writes:
The comments appeared on the Huffington Post, which, to its credit, took them down. But some were preserved by Michelle Malkin, and I reproduce them here...Says Malkin: "Whatever your partisan leanings, an attack planned on the Vice President of the United States is an attack on America. Some of our fellow Americans, however, can't put their sneering hatred of the White House aside."
After giving Malkin's efforts all this publicity, however, Kurtz goes on to say way down in his column:
I would agree that it's absurd to view these assassination fantasies as anything other than the rantings of the fringe, and that they shouldn't be used to tar an entire ideology. All I'm saying is that it's really sad that some loons feel this way, and that the Internet culture, however briefly, gives them a megaphone.
But Howard -- using these comments to "tar an entire ideology" is exactly what Malkin is doing here, and you know it. But you publicized her efforts, anyway. In the Malkin post you link to, she approvingly quotes a description of these loony comments as "left-wing patriotism." And she also approvingly quotes this:
"This kind of sick, twisted thinking is everywhere in the “progressive” blogosphere...And it’s even sicker than it appears at first glance, because many of these freaks want to see Cheney dead so that he can’t become president if someone assassinates President Bush."
I'm not at all defending those HuffPo comments -- they're disgusting, of course. But still, Kurtz knows exactly what Malkin is up to here. She's doing the very thing he said was "absurd" -- but he went ahead and publicized her efforts, anyway, while ignoring their true nature.
Yes, Kurtz wrote that tarring an ideology with a few vile comments is an absurd tactic in general -- without noting that this is exactly what Malkin is doing. Why tiptoe around the truly vile nature of this woman? Is the prospect of being targeted by her readership of pod-people really all that frightening?
Relatedly, how about a serious takeout on all the vile, bigoted, bloodthirsty comments you see at winger sites like Little Green Footballs? The other day, hapless wingnut Charles Johnson put up a post at LGF which contained a photo of leaders from Iran and Syria under the title: "Definition of a Target-Rich Environment." Some of the comments: "Kill them. Now." "If only it were so." "Satan aka Allah is in that room." "I smell...felafel farts." None of those comments has been removed -- unlike the ones at Huffington Post, which were taken down.
Yes, yes, I know, it's not a perfect parallel, because those leaders constitute the "enemy" while Cheney is our Veep. But still, this sort of violence and bigotry is everywhere in wingnut comment sections -- and the comments are often directed at Americans. When is the last time Kurtz devoted the lead of his column to that?
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Update: More from Glenn Greenwald: "Why would Kurtz so prominently tout and condemn the meaningless and unrepresentative remarks of 200 or so anonymous blog comments, while ignoring the equally perverse behavior and ideas of some of his best-est friends on television...?"
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